


Mistletoe

by Apocalyptica (MyLiminalHeart), dropshipheroes



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Mistletoe, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-27 23:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2710943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyLiminalHeart/pseuds/Apocalyptica, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropshipheroes/pseuds/dropshipheroes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn’t cause as much chaos as she might have thought, though it does make things a bit more interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistletoe

“What are you doing?” Clarke asks incredulously, staring up at Monty where he’s perched on a ladder in the middle of the wide doorway leading off the main hall and into med bay. He’s got a handful of some plant tied up with string, more of it spilling from his pockets, and it looks like he’s currently trying to tack it to the ceiling above them.

“Mistletoe,” he answers distractedly, as if that is any kind of explanation. When she huffs in frustration he pauses long enough to look at her and grin. 

“I read about it when I was researching herbs,” he elaborates. It’s a task she’s assigned him herself, they’ve been running short on medicine lately and it won’t be long before they are completely reliant on what they can grow and create themselves. Over a year on Earth and there are still some things they’re trying to get right.

“And you’re hanging it from the ceiling why?” she asks, raising an eyebrow to punctuate the ridiculousness of having to ask the question.

“It’s tradition,” he asserts, finishing securing the string and climbing back down until he’s standing next to her. “Apparently there’s an old Earth custom, you hang it up in doorways and when two people are underneath at the same time they kiss.”

“They kiss?” she echoes, and if she sounds skeptical she feels like that’s warranted. 

“It’s supposed to be good luck,” Monty says, looking a little less sure in the face of her obvious doubt.

“It sounds like something horny teenagers made up,” she grumbles, eyeing the bundle of green above them like it’s personally offended her. 

She’s going to have to ask him to take it down, she thinks, they don’t have time for silly traditions like this when they’re still trying to eek out some kind of survival most days. But she sees the way his face falls at her response, and in the sudden absence of his smile it hits her just how little his grin has been present in the past year, and she thinks what the hell. They could all use a little luck.

“When this leads to trouble just know I’m blaming you,” she tells him, mock stern now and failing miserably at even pretending to be that when his eyes light up happily.

“Sure thing boss,” he replies, smiling again, and then surprises her by leaning in and pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. He laughs at her startled expression and winks at her as he backs away down the hallway. “Feeling lucky yet?” he calls before he turns the corner, leaving her laughing in the hallway.

 

-

 

It doesn’t cause as much chaos as she might have thought, though it does make things a bit more interesting. Sprigs of the mistletoe pop up in doorways all over what’s left of the Ark overnight, and it seems that the rules of the tradition have been passed around just as quickly too, because by the time Clarke arrives at breakfast the next morning she’s seen no less than three people kissing, in various states of intensity (and she really never needed to know what Sinclair looked like with his wife’s hand on his ass, thank you very much). 

Having been forewarned of things, she manages to avoid any awkwardness herself – making sure that every doorway is clear before jumping through – and she gets to the mess hall unkissed but feeling very lucky for it.

She’s nursing a cup of awful not-coffee when someone sits down next to her in a huff and she hides her grin against the mug in her hand when she turns to take in Bellamy in all his grumpy glory.

“Rough morning?” she asks when he looks like he might just glare at the table top in front of them for the rest of the meal.

For a moment she doesn’t think he’s going to answer her, but then he steals the mug from her hand and mumbles, “Jasper kissed me,” before hiding himself behind a long sip.

She doesn’t bother to stop her laughter this time, the expression on his face is too ridiculous. He looks completely flummoxed and half angry and mostly like he’s hoping he’s stuck in some kind of bizarre dream. It’s clear he hasn’t been let in on Monty’s new tradition yet, and it isn’t often Bellamy is thrown like this. She can’t help but find it rather endearing. 

He kicks her leg and glares at her which only makes her laugh harder and she can see the corners of his mouth twitching like he wants to smile himself but doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction. It’s moments like these that still feel so rare as to be precious, moments when nothing is trying to kill them, when they aren’t leaders of a band of delinquents trying to rebuild a society but just Clarke and Bellamy, who are – against all odds – friends. Friends, or…

Well, in any case it’s nice, in the way that too few things still are, and even as her laughter fades the warmth of it stays between them. 

She kicks him back, snags her cup before he can take another sip, and says sagely, “Mistletoe,” only to dissolve into laughter again when he looks at her like she’s lost her mind.

 

-

 

Eventually she takes pity on him and explains. Over the next few days she finds herself enjoying entirely too much the way he starts to look vaguely paranoid whenever he’s near a doorway. 

-

The mistletoe stays up longer than she’d expected, and nearly a week later there are still dozens of doorways sporting the – slightly wilted – greenery on their lintels. Even more unexpected is the joy it seems to have brought to her fellow Ark survivors; she’s seen more smiles and heard more laughter in these halls in the last seven days than in the entire seven months before and she has to give Monty some credit – it isn’t exactly luck that’s being created here but it is something good. 

Most of her people - the remaining 100 that is (she still can’t help but think of these as _hers_ , though she knows they are supposedly trying to find a way to work together with the Ark, to all be one people together) - seem to think of it all as a wonderful game. The first few days there are ambushes and dares and an abundance of silliness more suited to the teenagers they still (mostly) are, rather than the war-hardened soldiers they’ve turned out to be.

It almost makes Clarke nervous at first, worrying that they might lose sight of all the hard things still ahead, as if this brief display of _youngness_ might weaken them. But despite all the merrymaking not one of them misses a training session or shift at work and so she tries to let herself enjoy this through them too. 

Clarke hasn’t escaped entirely unkissed herself, despite valiant effort. Considering how often she comes and goes through even just the med bay doors she was bound to be caught a few times, and while it has led to some awkward encounters (like kissing a blushing Jackson who couldn’t stop dropping things around her for two days after) it hasn’t been all bad. 

She’s never been the most comfortable with casual physical intimacy, and having built her walls up iron strong to survive this past year hasn’t helped that any. But with one silly little sprig of green in the doorway she’s had to be affectionate more often, and whether it’s been a smacking, silly kiss to Octavia’s face to make the younger girl shriek or a more heartfelt gentle press of her lips to Raven’s with a shared smile of miles overcome and ‘I’d still pick you first’, it is nice to share some of the love she feels so strongly for these people that at times it almost drowns her.

Her mother seems to feel the same way, at least towards Clarke herself, because Abby has conveniently caught her in the doorway at least once a day all week, kissing her on the cheek and holding her close every time. And while Clarke rolls her eyes and squirms uncomfortably when Abby gets misty eyed every once in a while, she can’t say that it’s entirely unwelcome. She’s put up walls between them too, and while she can’t say she’s ready to tear them down completely she might be ready to open the gate once in a while.

 

-

 

She doesn’t see much of Bellamy after their breakfast together for several days, and she wonders how he’s coping with all of this. He is even less comfortable with casual intimacy than she is, and if her walls are tough, his are near impenetrable and she can’t exactly picture him planting a casual kiss on anyone. When she starts to try and picture him not-so-casually kissing she decides it’s maybe time to stop thinking so much about him at all.

 

-

 

Jasper is in heaven with all the touchy-feely going around. 

Clarke catches him trying to look nonchalant while hanging out in various doorways as often as possible and practicing what he assures her is his sexy smolder. When she inevitably gets caught under the mistletoe with him (for the third time) she tells him to stop being a pest before fondly kissing him on the cheek, and then makes sure to send Byrne his way, sure that will help the lesson sink in.

It doesn’t of course, but he isn’t quite so terrible about it after that. He doesn’t camp out under the sprigs any longer, but takes no less delight in the times he does get caught with someone. During one particularly impressive run, she sees him giving loud wet kisses to no less than 13 people in the space of an afternoon, including Monty who looks fond if not a bit disgruntled at the other boy’s clear lack of technique.

Most people take his enthusiasm in stride, treating Jasper like an overeager puppy (or at least what puppies seemed to be like in the movies she used to watch on the Ark when she was young. They haven’t seen anything even vaguely dog-like yet on Earth, though Lincoln assures them there is a clan to the North who have a whole pack that they use for hunting) so she lets him be, though tries not to get caught too often with him herself. In fact turning a corner to see Jasper kissing someone is such a common occurrence that she stops paying attention at all. But when she sees him stop under the main door with Octavia at his side one evening she pauses.

They aren’t close, Octavia and Jasper, not like they were once when the dropship first landed. Clarke has always wondered if the distance came from the awkward torch Jasper carried for the younger Blake for just a little too long, or if it was simply that after Mount Weather and the Grounders and everything they had become very different people than they were those first few weeks on Earth. She knows they still care about each other, in the way that all the remaining 100 do, but she still feels tense watching them now, as they realize where they are standing.

Jasper’s ears turn red as soon as he spies the mistletoe above them, but Octavia just rolls her eyes and yanks him down for a solid kiss. It only lasts a few seconds and Jasper looks a little wistful when she pulls back, but then she’s punching him in the arm and teasing him, saying “Come on loser, you can buy me a drink at that underground bar I know you and Monty are running,” and his face brightens and he’s babbling about brewing techniques and just like that Clarke knows those two are fine.

Maybe they have been fine all along, and it’s just another thing she hasn’t had time to notice yet. As they walk away it is Clarke that feels wistful, wondering how much she’s missed in the lives of the people she loves over the past year, how much she’s held herself apart, _had_ to hold herself apart, in order to lead them.

Then she thinks about the face Bellamy would make if he knew Jasper had kissed his little sister and she doesn’t stop smiling all the way to work. 

 

-

 

Not everyone is as eager as Jasper to share in the, well, _sharing_ , of love. Bellamy is (as predicted) getting grumpier by the day, and he finally confesses to her over dinner one night that he’s resorted to sneaking around camp by back hallways and circuitous routes to avoid getting ambushed.

“There were four of them waiting outside my tent this morning Clarke, _four_ ,” he groans, sinking his head down onto the tabletop between them. “I had to fake a Grounder sighting just to get out of having them walk me to breakfast and underneath all those damn doors along the way.”

“Poor baby,” she says with mock sympathy, patting at his hair with a grin that only feels a little forced. She reminds herself severely that it is neither here nor there how many girls want to wait outside his tent for the chance to kiss him. It is even less of her concern how many may have been _inside_ that same tent. And, twinge in her chest aside, it is kind of funny to see him looking so harassed.

He turns his head enough to glare at her patronizing tone, but when she only grins back at him with unashamed joy at his suffering he sighs heavily and closes his eyes. It isn’t until he sighs again, a contented little humming sound so soft she almost misses it, that she realizes that she’s started absentmindedly carding her fingers through his hair. 

Chagrined, she pulls her hand back into her own lap quickly, heart giving an extra thump at the disgruntled noise he makes.

“Well you’ve brought it on yourself really,” she says maybe a little too loudly, quickly jumping back into their conversation and trying to cover up her embarrassment at her wandering hands. “Things like this are bound to be an issue when you’ve got a rotating door to your tent every night.”

His expression twists up in confusion and he finally sits back up to regard her fully. “I don’t have a rotating door,” he says, mouth souring when she just looks skeptical. “I don’t!”

“Oh please, you practically had a harem at your beck and call when we first landed on Earth,” she scoffs. 

He’s quiet for what feels like a long time, and she finds herself looking everywhere but at him. When avoiding his gaze starts to feel too much like cowardice she forces herself to meet it directly, despite the squirmy feeling of embarrassment heating her cheeks at having even brought this up. Bellamy doesn’t look how she expected him to though, no smug pride or angry indignation in his expression. He just looks thoughtful, like he’s seeing something in her he didn’t expect.

“That was a long time ago, Clarke,” he says eventually, and his voice is quiet and weighted, like his words should mean something to her, like they should _matter_. He looks at her for a few more seconds, like he’s giving her a chance to respond, but she feels all at once completely out of words.

He doesn’t seem surprised at her lack of response, though maybe a little disappointed which is strange, but doesn’t press her for anything more. Instead he pushes his chair back and stands to go.

“Don’t forget we’re on early morning patrol,” he says before he goes, this time his voice much more normal, just her co-leader reminding her of one of her responsibilities.

“Right, thanks,” she finally manages to say, and if her voice isn’t quite as even as his it’s almost there.

He gives her a quick nod goodbye and leaves her, and Clarke sits for a very long time thinking.

 

-

 

She’s five minutes late for patrol the next morning thanks to the damn mistletoe-d door outside the latrines (and really Monty? There?) but when Bellamy is just his usual stern self, complaining about her tardiness in that particularly surly tone he only seems to have before 5am, she feels a little bit better. 

This she knows how to deal with.

 

-

 

Monroe seems to hate the mistletoe nearly as much as Bellamy professes to, glaring at all the doorways in the Ark as if she suspects them of murder. She looks so fierce that most people go out of their way to avoid being near anything even vaguely green with her just in case, and those brave enough to chance a doorway usually get a kiss hard enough to look like it hurts. 

However, when Clarke catches a glimpse of Monroe outside the armory with a girl who works in the greenhouses with Monty (Lena she thinks, maybe. She’s still learning all the names of those that came down on the Ark itself) it is a very different picture. Monroe looks almost nervous, tender, and when Lena lingers on the kiss her whole face softens. 

Clarke slips away unseen, and wonders how much else she still doesn’t know about her people, how much they have all learned to hide. It makes her sad, but also hopeful – that maybe the work they are putting in to building a new society from the ground up will be worth it, if one day Monroe won’t feel like she has to keep that part of her life so guarded.

 

-

 

Interestingly, Monroe turns out to be the one person Bellamy doesn’t seem to mind getting stuck in a doorway with, at least if Clarke is any judge. She nearly turns it into an accidental threesome when she literally walks into them a day or two later, her head buried in medical charts instead of watching where she’s going. She bounces off Monroe’s shoulder and falls back on her ass, paperwork flying everywhere and her eyes wide and startled.

Monroe gives her a nod, the kind of recognition one might give a superior officer, and doesn’t comment on her clumsiness even as Clarke tries to pick herself up and cobble together what is left of her dignity. Bellamy, however, laughs obnoxiously, his grin only growing wider when she sends him a death glare.

“Way to interrupt a moment, Princess,” he says when he’s caught his breath from laughing at her pain. 

She looks between him and Monroe warily. She hasn’t mentioned to him what she saw - wouldn’t, it’s Monroe’s choice to share it if and when she wants - but Clarke wonders if being under the mistletoe with Bellamy makes the other girl uncomfortable. Mostly she hopes Bellamy isn’t about to be a total ass about things, which granted is probably a long shot.

He surprises her though when he reaches for Monroe’s hand and kisses it quickly, acting the gentleman Clarke knows he isn’t through and through. Monroe takes it in stride, uses the hand he kissed to honest-to-god salute them both and then she’s off down the hall.

Bellamy’s mouth holds the hint of a smile watching her go and Clarke realizes all at once that he already knows about Monroe, already probably knows lots of things about their people that she doesn’t, and certainly doesn’t need her to shed any insight. He’s always been better at that part of it all than her, the connecting with people, reading them like books and storing the knowledge away til it’s useful. He may not have always used that power for good, but he’s changed a lot this past year, they both have, and she thinks maybe she ought to start giving him more credit.

None of this changes the fact that she still has to get through that doorway, and he is still standing in her way, and Clarke somehow doubts that he’s changed so much as to keep him from making things uncomfortable for _her_ if she ends up the one stuck under the mistletoe with him. Ever since their conversation at dinner the other night she feels less surefooted around him, unsure at times of where they stand.

The grin he gives her doesn’t help set her mind at ease - it’s half arrogant, half lecherous, all Bellamy.

“After you Princess,” he says through his smile, gesturing at her to pass while holding his position. 

She’s debating what will be a bigger blow to her pride, backing down from the challenge or accepting and having to face whatever indignity he surely has planned, but she’s saved the trouble of deciding when another body breezes past her.

The look on Bellamy’s face when he sees Murphy coming is priceless, and Clarke can’t help the bubble of laughter building in her throat. It bursts out, inelegant and silly, when Bellamy tries to move out of the way and instead collides directly with Murphy in the doorway. Murphy, who wastes no time in grabbing Bellamy’s face and planting a solid, perfunctory kiss on his mouth before moving on down the hallway as if this is an everyday occurrence. 

Bellamy’s face twists up like he cannot accept that this is his life, and sighs loudly at Clarke’s giggles before storming away.

 

-

 

It has been a long, impossible day - the kind that reminds Clarke that, despite the more frequent smiles over the past week or so, they are still holding on to survival by the skin of their teeth most of the time. The kind of day that gives her that dose of reality in the form of blood and pain, though this time thankfully not death. All it took was one weapons malfunction at the gate to send four people to medical, and she’s spent the better part of the last 10 hours stitching and bandaging and praying that their crude excuse for medicine down here doesn’t fail them.

Still, despite feeling dead on her feet and heavy in her mind, she can’t help but brighten a little when she sees Bellamy standing in the med bay doors waiting for her. He does that sometimes, mostly when there is strategy to talk or decisions to make, though lately he’s shown up more often with no other apparent aim than to walk with her to wherever she is going next. She mostly tries not to think about the why’s of it, or the fact that the horrors of the day have a way of fading from her mind when he’s by her side, no matter if it’s in companionable silence or heated debate.

She also can’t help but notice that he’s directly underneath that first sprig of mistletoe Monty hung. She wonders if he’s realized it’s there. When she then starts to wonder if he’s purposely chosen the position, she forces her mind to change tracks and hopes the smile she gives him doesn’t betray her wayward thoughts. 

Clarke isn’t sure if she’s disappointed or relieved when he steps out from under the doorway before she reaches it.

It turns out this isn’t just one of his random visits, and they spend most of the walk to her tent discussing his plans to take a hunting party out one last time before the snow comes. Usually he’ll follow her inside during such a discussion, turn his back while she changes but continue to talk things through. This time though he pauses and grabs her arm to stop her right before she turns to duck under the flap.

At her quizzical look he gestures behind her and Clarke turns to see that some jokester has pinned a giant bundle of mistletoe directly over her tent flap. (She strongly suspects the culprit is Raven, and narrows her eyes at it as her mind whirls through plans of revenge.)

“You put that up yourself princess?” he asks, eyes sparkling with barely concealed amusement, “Because I gotta say if you needed to be kissed _that_ badly, I would have-“

“Oh like I’d want to kiss you,” she interrupts, perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary due to her earlier lapse in judgment when thinking about him and mistletoe in close proximity.

Bellamy’s eyes widen at her tone, but his mouth tips up a little at the corner as he finishes, “I was going to say I would have sent some poor sap your way. But now I’m wondering what exactly has been going through your dirty mind.”

“Oh please,” she scoffs, refusing to let herself be flustered.

“Hmm I don’t know,” he teases, “This feels an awful lot like a case of ‘the lady doth protest too much’.”

“What?” 

She doesn’t get the reference, though she’s sure it’s at her expense, but is surprised when he is the one who seems embarrassed.

“Nevermind, it’s just some old playwright, it doesn’t matter,” he mutters, and it’s only when he drops her wrist that she realizes he’s been holding it all this time.

It would feel like a victory when he’s the first to drop his eyes too, though a victory over what she’s not sure, but then he’s suddenly stepping in closer to her and her heart starts pounding too loudly in her chest for her to savor the tentative win.

They aren’t really under the mistletoe, but close enough that she wonders if maybe he’ll use it as an excuse, if maybe he’s going to kiss her after all. He’s as close to her as he can get without actually doing it, and her chin tilts up in anticipation as his hand moves like he’s going to cup her cheek, his eyes dark and solemn and oh so close, and then –

And then he’s reaching past her, tugging the mistletoe down from the tent flap, and smirking at the flush on her cheeks that she is suddenly sure he can tell is only half embarrassment and the rest arousal.

“This stuff is a nuisance anyway,” he murmurs in her ear, smirk sharpening further when her breath stutters at the feel of his breath on her cheek.

Clarke can’t think of anything to do but turn away, pushing inside the tent with a sharp efficiency that belies the still rapid beating of her heart, and thinks the only thing more dangerous than impossible days are the impossible boys that face them with you. 

Today, she thinks, she’s not feeling very lucky at all.

 

-

 

After ten days of being kissed far too often for her liking, Raven refuses to leave her workshop, insisting she is entirely too busy with, ya know, _actually improving their lives_ here on the ground to participate in something so stupid. Considering she’s working on heating units with rechargeable batteries, Clarke is inclined to agree. Winter is a hard reality on this world, even with the extra resources the Ark stations that survived the landing have provided.

Wick spends most of his time in there with her, and Clarke is pretty sure he’s just making sure that when Raven does eventually have to leave he’ll be the first one to the doorway. Somehow he’s been the one person Raven has managed to consistently avoid being caught in a doorway with, and Clarke privately thinks that’s probably more telling than anything, but she values her life too much to point this out to either of them.

When it becomes clear that the mechanic has no intention of leaving the room anytime soon, Wick gets creative. 

Or at least, that’s the only explanation Clarke can settle on when she stops by to ask Raven if she’s had a chance to look at their radio situation lately (and gripe at her a little about the mistletoe-on-tent thing) and finds her being chased around the room by Wick, who is wearing what can only be described as a headband with an old antenna soldered on perpendicularly, with what else but mistletoe hanging from it. 

“What the fuck?” 

Bellamy’s voice comes from behind suddenly, making her jump while simultaneously giving voice to her thoughts.

“I think he got tired of waiting,” Clarke says, turning to look at him over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow and sardonic tone.

Raven seems to notice them then and spares them a quick glance, throwing a wave their way as she ducks around a table piled with electrical debris.

“Hey guys, if you’re here about your radios I’m already working on improving the range for the next models,” she says, sounding only slightly breathless. She still moves a little slower in the brace than she likes, but she’s keeping ahead of Wick on her own steam and she’s smiling bigger than she has since she landed on this world.

“Uh, okay,” Clarke says distractedly, her mind still catching up to the ridiculous scene in front of her and the nearness of the boy behind her.

“I taught her to dodge better than that,” Bellamy grumbles to her as Raven half-feints to the left before changing her mind, almost letting Wick catch her in the process. His voice is close, warm against her ear, and Clarke fights the shiver threatening to make it’s way up her spine.

It helps that he looks so put out by the apparent failing of his lessons, making him less that sort of brooding threat she’s started to find entirely too attractive and more the adorable grump she’s come to find endearing. (Which is maybe more dangerous in its own way than she’d like to admit).

“I’m not sure her goal is to avoid capture here,” she whispers back. 

Bellamy rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, but leans in a little closer to her too.

Raven stops suddenly and Wick stumbles to a comically fast halt himself so as not to bump into her. Raven pulls the headpiece off and breaks it in two before leaning in and kissing him like there’s nowhere else she plans to be for the next few hours, and Clarke thinks maybe Wick has finally managed to engineer his own luck. 

When it becomes clear the two have no intention of breaking it up any time soon, Bellamy coughs uncomfortably and Clarke quickly turns around.

“And that is our cue to leave,” she says matter-of-factly, refusing to meet his eyes. Bellamy nods in enthusiastic agreement and they beat a hasty retreat, though he does pause to let her travel under the doorway on her own completely before he follows.

Raven waves to them over Wick’s shoulder as they go, never breaking the kiss.

 

-

 

Twelve days in and there are slightly fewer sprigs hung about than they started with. Some have fallen, and some she suspects Kane has had taken down (considering that there is now a mistletoe-free path along his daily route she thinks it’s a pretty valid suspicion). It’s made Clarke relax her guard a little too, as more hallways and entrances become safe-zones once again, and so she is caught a bit by surprise when she bumps into Miller on his way out of the armory and he catches her arm to keep her in place, pointing up with his other hand and a wry grin on his face.

“Guess I finally got lucky huh?” he teases, and he looks just serious enough to make the back of her neck heat up.

She smiles and shrugs not quite sure what to say. Miller is practically inner circle these days, and she values his loyalty and his insight, but he’s also still very firmly someone she thinks of as Bellamy’s, and somehow that makes it a little uncomfortable to think about kissing him. He doesn’t give her much time to overthink it though, stepping in close and kissing her with a surprisingly solid amount of intent.

She’s startled enough to let it go on longer than she usually does. It isn’t unpleasant (his technique is miles ahead of Jasper’s), just different, and she hasn’t kissed enough people in her life yet to know if the difference is good or bad or neutral so she kisses him back a little more forcefully than is probably wise because she’s curious. It’s almost scientific, she thinks, and she can’t bring herself to regret the lack of passion she feels because she’s pretty sure that would complicate things. 

The best way to describe it, she decides, is nice. It’s a nice kiss, nothing more, nothing less.

Almost as soon as she comes to this conclusion there is a loud throat clearing from behind her and she and Miller jolt apart. She has a moment of looking at his face, pleased and maybe a bit chagrined, before she turns to see who else has arrived.

Of course it’s Bellamy, and of course that somehow makes the heat creep from her neck to her cheeks til she’s blushing like she actually got caught doing something wrong.

Bellamy is glaring at them sharply, arms crossed over his chest and feet planted like he’s ready for fighting. He turns his glare fully at Miller and Clarke can practically feel the other boy shrinking a little behind her.

“Bellamy,” Miller starts, and is sounds like an apology, which confuses and irritates Clarke all at once. “It was the mistletoe, man, that’s it and-“

“ _And_ it’s made you late for guard duty,” Bellamy interrupts, tone flinty. 

Miller mumbles something indistinct and even more clearly apologetic and darts around Clarke to hurry down the hall. He turns to give her a half smile as he goes, kind of a ‘it was nice while it lasted’ sort of look, and she smiles back on instinct – regrets it when she looks back at Bellamy and sees she’s now the sole focus of his glare.

Still, she’s no stranger to his dissatisfaction and she isn’t about to let him push her around so she squares her shoulders and glares back at him. 

“You shouldn’t lead him on,” Bellamy says sternly, though he drops his eyes from hers first. “Kid’s got a crush on you and it’s gonna make him do something stupid.”

“I wasn’t leading him on,” Clarke protests, “It was just the stupid mistletoe. Besides it was just a kiss.”

Bellamy grunts noncommittally, and turns away from her before she can get a lock on the emotion she sees tightening his jaw. “Whatever you say Princess,” he says, like he’s not sure he believes her.

She resists the urge to stop his retreat, fights back the sudden swell of need to reassure him that there is nothing between her and Miller. She doesn’t owe Bellamy Blake any explanations, she tells herself, shouldn’t _want_ to give them to him.

It makes her feel unsettled and snappish for the rest of the day though, and for the first time she wishes this stupid tradition was over already.

 

-

 

It’s been two weeks now, and she’s not the only one who’s gotten tired of it all. People all over camp are starting to get back to business as usual, and many have started pulling down the few bundles of mistletoe still hanging whenever they pass it in a doorway.

“It was fun while it lasted,” Jasper sighs to Clarke as they watch Monty collect the bundle at the med bay door.

“I’m not sure the people you were kissing felt that way,” she teases, laughing when he punches her softly in the arm in retaliation.

He and Monty leave soon after, acting secretive enough that Clarke is sure they’re heading to check on their newest batch of moonshine at the illicit still that is an open secret around camp. She watches them fondly as they go, rolling her eyes when she sees Octavia and Lincoln pressed together in another doorway further down the hall, using the excuse of one of the last few bundles left to practically maul each other in public. Clarke is pretty sure scenes like that were one of the reasons for Bellamy’s grumpy mood those first few days.

As if the thought alone has conjured him, she turns to see Bellamy himself heading towards her from the opposite direction.

“Speak of the devil,” she says throwing him a small smile when he reaches her side.

“And he shall appear,” Bellamy finishes the quote with a flourish, giving her half a bow and a grin of his own. “Done for the day?” he asks and she nods, lets him fall in step beside her as she makes her way to the mess hall for dinner. 

He throws one look down the long hall behind them, face tightening briefly (so Octavia and Lincoln must still be going strong Clarke thinks) but then his expression melts into something like fond exasperation and he leaves it be. When he turns forward again he shifts just a little, and suddenly he is walking much closer to her, their shoulders brushing every now and again as they walk.

She breaks the comfortable quiet between them eventually, and her mind is still stuck on mistletoe thoughts, so of course she says, “You must be glad this whole mistletoe thing is over, huh?” before immediately feeling like kicking herself for bringing it up after all the weirdness it has caused them these past two weeks.

Bellamy shrugs. “I’m not gonna miss the extra ten minutes it took to get everywhere,” he says flatly, before lowering his voice just a little and adding, “Though it wasn’t all bad I guess. Made people happy. It’s nice to see them smile every once in a while you know?”

Clarke knows he means the 100, their people ( _theirs_ , hers and his, and doesn’t that just make something in her stomach take flight) and smiles when she nods in agreement. “Yeah, it is.”

“And you?” he asks after a moment.

“Me what?” 

“Did it make you happy?” he clarifies, still using that quiet, serious tone.

He’s really looking at her now, something behind his eyes that is new enough to make her pause. She stutters over an answer, slowing to a stop so that she can turn to regard him fully.

“I guess,” she hedges, “Why wouldn’t it?”

Bellamy smirks a little, though there isn’t any edge to it. “So you got all the kisses you were after?”

Clarke has no idea what to say to this, finds her eyes drawn down to his lips almost involuntarily, thinks back over all the times they _haven’t_ ended up in a doorway together over these past two weeks. When she meets his gaze again his eyes are dark and there is a heat behind them that wasn’t there a moment before and she has just a moment to think _**oh**_ and then he’s kissing her.

It’s not exactly gentle, but there’s a softness to it all the same, a question in the touch of his lips to hers. She’s frozen for a moment, long enough for him to start to pull away, but then she’s surging forward, the answer in every press of her mouth against his, and it isn’t gentle at all this time, it’s fire and blood and need all wrapped up together. 

He meets every touch with just as much ferocity, his hands gliding up her back, dragging her in close. One tangles in her hair, holding her mouth to him, forcing her to open under his assault, and she’s pretty sure one of them moans but it doesn’t matter because he’s all hard lines and soft lips and heat, so much _heat_ , Raven won’t need those heaters after all, at least not for her, and she can barely think straight so eventually she stops thinking all together. 

The brush of his tongue against her own is like a current right down the middle of her, his hands are all that is holding her up, and this time she knows the breathy gasp is hers and she doesn’t care at all.

Eventually they slow, and he presses two last small kisses to her mouth before pulling away just far enough to rest their foreheads together, both of them breathing heavily into the small space between them. Clarke blinks open her eyes after a moment and lifts her head away to look at him. He looks flushed, color high on his cheeks, eyes bright, lips wet. He looks well-kissed and a little dazed for it and she smiles because _she did that_.

Bellamy grins back at her, this one all open sunshine and a hint of nerves, and she feels like laughing and kissing him all over again. Before she does either though his eyes flick up and the corner of his smile ticks up a little higher. He’s reaching over her head and handing something to her and when she looks she sees a bundle of mistletoe resting in the cup of her hands.

“Guess they missed one,” he whispers, and presses a final quick kiss to her cheek before moving to start walking down the hallway again.

She’s stuck for a moment staring at the plant, wondering if he’s really going to try to play the whole thing off as just tradition, but when she looks back up he still has that hesitant sunshine smile and everything inside her settles a little until there is just this bright glow somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

Still, as she hurries to catch up with him she tucks the mistletoe into her pocket, just in case. After all, Clarke has always believed in making her own luck.


End file.
